


The Bunker Below Negatio VI

by Spoon888



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Elita One Is So Pink It Should Be Illegal, Enemies To Lovers To Weird Rivals, F/F, Injury, Mentions Of Slavery And Slave Trading, Sticky, Swords, hand holding, rare pair hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24529297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoon888/pseuds/Spoon888
Summary: Slipstream has a bad day, and unlike some other Autobot leaders she could mention, Elita One won't let herself be distracted by a pair of pretty wings and a dangerous smile.
Relationships: Elita One/Slipstream
Comments: 23
Kudos: 78





	The Bunker Below Negatio VI

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adweui](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adweui/gifts).



> Been sleeping on this pairing too damn long

Slipstream was no stranger to solitude. For a seeker without a trine, it came as a second nature to her. 

But she had never felt it so acutely than in the black market place of Island's End, on the planet of Negatio VI, four billion lightyears from the nearest Decepticon territory, and with it, anything remotely pertaining to a friend. 

As much an one Decepticon could call another a 'friend'. 

She glanced up into the purplish sky, spying the glimmers of stars she could pick out in the perpetual twilight of the planet, and the rare few she could recognise. There was a shrill squealing noise as some of the native wildlife soared overheard - a trio of Arrowkytes, flying in the formation that had given them their name. A wave of loneliness swept over her. 

She dropped her gaze back to the ground, admonishing herself for succumbing to such weak feelings. It was her own actions that had brought her to such a far corner of the universe, and as much as she may wish otherwise, she had no one to blame but herself for those. 

She headed into the market square, tossing a universal-credit at an armed tentacled guard's way, ducking under it's electro spear before it even had the chance to grant her entry. The market was large and sprawling, catering to all manner of high and low lifeforms; Cybertronian, organic, or otherwise. It meant finding the real steals took a lot of work, but they were guaranteed to be there, they just needed finding. 

She passed knock-off cloning technology and an organic 'parts' stall, and kept her head down when she overheard the calls of an ongoing slave auction in the next row of stalls over, the bellows of the auctioneer calling out the worth of living-beings with the same disconnected apathy as the four headed lizard-thing advertising it's illegal stimulants. 

A few patrons glanced her way, but she had over a millennia experience in arranging her face into the perfect expression of a mech that did not, and should not, be bothered. And if the face didn't do it, the insignias on her ramrod straight wings would. 

Finally, she set optics on what she had come here for; armour upgrades, temp-reformats, and souped up weaponry- the undercover Cybertronian's best friend. 

The mini-bot running the stall wore the sort of exaggerated, slag-eating grin that reminded her distinctly of Swindle -perhaps they were related, a family business maybe?- but that carefree swagger evaporated the second his optics lifted and met her gaze. 

He flinched back at first, fear flashing across his features, but it was gone the next second. He breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the back of his hand across his bone-dry forehead with an awkward laugh. "For a second there, I thought you were one of those 'Bots."

"And that I'm not is less of a reason to be wary?" Slipstream picked up a set of claw-mods -cheap and extravagant, the sort Starscream would wear- and dropped them distastefully. 

"Of course not, of course not," the mech held up his hands placatingly. "But you know what those rebranded-cops are like. They'd shut me down sooner than buy from me. Heard they were in the system." 

Slipstream paused with her hand over an illegally-modified automatic shoulder-blaster. "This system?" 

The grin was back. He leant across the stall to encroach upon her personal space, waving her closer as if to whisper a secret. Slipstream rolled her optics and bent slightly. 

"Seeing as you have every reason to avoid their notice, I can take those incriminating wings off your back for you. For a price." 

Slipstream straightened sharply in offence. Grounders were all the same. Wings were not something to be swapped out as easily as paint colours. 

"I don't need to hide from Autobots," she drawled, and in rolling her optics she noticed a large Tetrahexian style of sword. She lifted it out of it's stand, "Not when I can kill them." 

She twisted the grip through her fingers, turning the blade in an arch with a sharp ring of metal as it sliced through the air. It was heavy. A ritualistic blade, more for ceremony than combat, a little too bulky for her tastes, and not what she had come for besides. 

She set it down on the cluttered stall. 

"But I do need to avoid being recognised," she refocused on the mini-bot, fixing him with a stern look. 

"Ah, I see." He drawled, and Slipstream doubted very much that he saw anything past his own nose actually. "Not so much Autobots you're worried about, but your own kind?" 

He had proved her assumptions perfectly correct, and couldn't have been further from the truth. 

But she was hardly going to spill the details of her unfortunate week to sleazy strangers. Not on a planet so frequented by the very sort of slavers she was trying to avoid. Rather than answer, she continued to survey her choices. 

Artillery, rather than disguise, would suit her better. Overpowering the crew of the slave vessel she had _momentarily_ pirated had been fairly easily, and she doubted they had a great deal of reinforcements to bring with them in hunting her down. Few mecha actually chose a life aboard a slave ship; it was a cutthroat, dangerous, unreliable 'profession'. The captain's of the notorious vessels had as few friends as they did morals. 

Her optics wandered back to sword again, taken with it's beauty. But the space where she had set it was now empty. Her hand paused above the bare wood. "Where's-"

In answer, the mini-bot cursed and dived beneath his stall. A series of clanks and bangs told her he had dived into the underground tunnels that ran the length of the market.

Holding herself perfectly still, Slipstream didn't follow. 

The air had stirred behind her, and with the shift came a waft of fragranced designer polish and burnt out power cells. A scent unique, and unmistakeable. 

Slowly, Slipstream turned at the neck, her nose coming within a millimetre of the glinting sword tip. The smooth blade was reflecting pink. A _lot_ of pink. Slipstream's optics followed the blade up to the handle, and to the arm of the mech holding it. 

"Elita," she grimaced, and had to angle her helm back when the blade lowered a fraction, the tip close to nicking her bottom lip. It fell with a light _clink_ to rest against the top of her chest plate. Elita One took a measured step towards her. 

"Slipstream," her warm voice greeted. 

Elita was bulked up in the thick armour of a mech expecting to have to go toe-to-toe with a tank. Perhaps she had been expecting Megatron? She must be disappointed. 

"A Decepticon in a slaver's market," Elita One began, that superior Autobot lilt to her voice was laced with disappointment. "Should I even be surprised at the hypocrisy?" 

"I could ask you the same," Slipstream lifted a hand to nudge the tip of the blade away from her chest, but Elita stepped forward again. The sword lifted and pressed against her throat cabling. Slipstream lifted her hands in surrender, swallowing.

"Are you alone?" Eilta demanded. 

Slipstream scowled. "Are you?" 

She should have known better than to stay in this system. Of course the Autobots would have heard about an attack on a slave vessel. They wouldn't have been able to _resist_ coming here to dismantle the local trade like the galaxy-police they imagined they were. Perhaps if they didn't spend so much time and energy sticking their noses into everyone else's business they would have won the war already. Then they could all just go home and move on with their lives. Slipstream could have concocted some creative stories about her unquestionable innocence in the matters of war crimes. She already planned to pin them on Starscream; the faction's perfect scapegoat. 

Elita glared at her a moment longer, suspicion etched into every line on her battle-scuffed face. "Where are your trine?" 

"What trine?" Slipstream was proud of herself for sounding so casual. 

Elita's sword lowered a millimetre, the same distance that one of her dark brows rose. 

Unafraid of the sword that was a twitch away from slicing her main fuel line, and it's holder who could very well do it, Slipstream made a show of looking around the busy market place, full of aliens that couldn't care less for two warmongering Cybertronians doing what Cybertronians did best. 

"What about you, your majesty? Where are your little underlings?" 

Elita didn't answer, and given that it never usually took more than half a second for her rabidly loyal lieutenant, Chromia, to come charging through the nearest brickwall to her Commander's defence, Slipstream was fairly confident in assuming the pink legend herself was equally unsupported. How exciting.

And weird, for an Autobot. They thrived off camaraderie and friendship and all that sort of nonsense famous for getting good soldiers killed. 

Slipstream was still assessing how best to get the sword off her neck -the two best solutions that came to mind being distraction or flirtation, and considering this was _Elita-fragging-One_ , one of those options was much more tempting than the other- when a sudden 'target lock' warning lit up her HUD. 

She flung herself to the side, the tip of Elita's sword nicking a throat cables. The pew of a blaster firing echoed through the air and hit something with a flash and crackle of electricity. Slipstream landed face down on the dirt, tucking her wings in when the alien black-market shoppers began a panicked stampede to escape. There was a clatter of metal next to her face, Elita dropping the sword and whipping around with her blaster, firing in the direction of the shot. 

Slipstream didn't have to pop up into target range to know it as the crew of the slavers ship she'd screwed over. She snatched up the sword and warmed up her thrusters, happy to let Elita deal with and hopefully kill her assailants for her - when she registered a tackiness around the grip of the sword. She opened her palm to find it stained pink with energon. 

She crawled on her knees and rolled herself behind the stall into a more secure position, watching Elita retreat backwards around the corner of an opposite stall, one hand aiming her blaster, the other clutching her shoulder over a smoking injury. 

All that armour, and the sleazy scumbags had nailed her right in the shoulder seam. 

Shots were starting to come from every direction. Slipstream hadn't expected to be found so soon. She certainly hadn't expected the captain to have had so many friends.

A blaster bolt scorched the stall right next to her face. Scratch that last thought. These were clearly paid mercenaries. The cargo she had 'stolen' must have been worth a lot. 

"Psst," Slipstream hissed at the foolishly courageous Autobot. "'Lita!" 

Elita's blue optics widened. She did a double take, glancing at Slipstream's hiding place, brow furrowed in disgust. " _What_ did you call me?!" 

"Get over here, idiot!" Slipstream snarled. 

Eilta looked between her assailants and her long time enemy, weighing up her options. With a grimace and a heap load of clear reluctance, she fired a volley of shots, then sprinted across the path towards Slipstream. Halfway there, Slipstream rose with her null rays extended. She ignored the acute panic that flashed in Elita's optics and twisted around to aim at their attackers, providing cover fire for the Autobot's run. 

The slavers ducked behind their cover, yowling curses, and Elita skidded into Slipstream, sliding down onto her aft with a thunk and grimace. Slipstream dropped into a crouch next to her, her wing brushing the larger Autobot's side. 

Having previously noted the pleasant fragrance of Elita's armour, Slipstream wrinkled her nose at the overwhelming scent of energon now masking it. Disguised against the pink of Elita's armour was energon, welling up behind her fingers out of the wound on her shoulder. It was tracking down her chest plate and arm, all the way down to her wrist and the handle of her blaster. 

Instinctively, Slipstream reached for her. 

Elita wrenched her arm away in the move that clearly hurt, thinking she was going for the blaster to disarm her. 

Slipstream decided not to comment on it. 

"Do you have anything useful in there, Auto-Cop," she nodded to Elita's frame, in reference to her subspace pocket. "You've pretty high clearance, you must have a least one bomb-"

"This is a civilian marketplace-!" Elita sounded pretty scandalised for an Autobot that had committed more than her own share of war crimes. 

"That sells _slaves_ ," Slipstream reminded her coldly. "I know that doesn't bother you Autobots all that much-"

Elita thrust her energon smeared hand into her subspace, not wanting to lower her blaster. In the process she released the pressure on her wound. A fresh wave of energon rushed forth. Slipstream dived forward and pressed her own hands against it. Elita cursed - in very un-Autobot language- and threw her head back, clenching her optics and her teeth as she continued to riffle shakily through her subspace.

Slipstream kept her optics on their slowly advancing attackers and her hands (both of them, Elita's shoulder was _big_ ) on her unlikely partner's the wound. "Hurry up!" She snapped. 

Elita yanked something out of her subspace. A smoke grenade. Which would buy them seconds of time and achieve nothing in the long run. Slipstream glared. "That's the best you have?!" 

"I don't see you offering any solutions!" Eilta cried, pain chipping away at her patience. 

Slipstream snatched it out of her hand and flung it with as much force as she could muster. The grenade went off with a flash and a sudden bloom of smoke. She heard the slavers cough and curse. They sounded closer than she'd realised. 

Slipstream got to her pedes, yanking on Elita's good arm. The Autobot was unexpectedly slow to rise, even pulling against Slipstream's urging. "What are doing?!"

Elita looked her up and down, "What are _you_ doing?!" 

"Running!" Slipstream snapped, wondering if she had been shot in the helm too. "Hurry up-!"

Elita may have been shot and was subsequently leaking energon everywhere, but her legs still worked fine, _and_ seemed to be a full mile longer than Slipstream's. The hand Slipstream had locked around Elita's wrist slipped down as they ran and she struggled to keep up with her, until it was Elita clinging to her fingers, dragging _her_ along. 

Slipstream spied a trap door on the ground ahead, and recalling the mini-bots quick escape upon Elita's arrival, concluded that it must have been an entrance into the underground tunnels. She pulled against Elita, gripping the Autobot's fingers back, "There!" 

Elita caught on to her idea, and brushed her out of the way when Slipstream dropped into a crouch to prise the door up. Slipstream was happy to step aside and let the bigger Autobot do the heavy lifting. Injured or no, Elita was strong, snapping off the lock with one hand and hauling the door open. She nodded for Slipstream to get in first. 

Slipstream leapt in, ignoring the ladder and using her thrusters to cushion her decent. The blue fire of her thrusters lit up the dark space, and with a frantic little twirl in search of an escape route, Slipstream realised her mistake.

"Wait!" She called, blasting upwards to stop Elita as she swung herself in, "It's a-"

The trap door sealed with a slam behind Elita, trapping then inside _not_ a tunnel system, but a bunker. 

"-Dead end," Slipstream finished lamely, drifting towards the bunker's bottom. 

Above her, dangling halfway down the ladder, Elita frowned. "We can simply-"

She stopped, the clang of footsteps above cutting her off. They listened to the voices of the slavers, arguing amongst themselves about which way they had gone. One muttered about following a trail of energon, that they hadn't gone far. Another louder voice ordered them to set up a perimeter. 

The voices faded, but they didn't disappear. 

"Great," Slipstream powered down her thrusters and left them in the dark, nothing but the light of their own optics to see each other by. "I guess we're trapped down here." 

She heard Elita climbing down from the ladder somewhere in front of her. She didn't answer for some time. Slipstream heard her move over to the opposite wall. There was a clunk and sigh as the Autobot dropped against the wall and slid down.

Slipstream watched what she could make out of her outline carefully. The shine of energon glimmered faintly in the darkness, making Elita marginally more visible, or at least the energon she was losing. 

"I suppose we are," Elita said eventually, sounding no happier about the situation than Slipstream herself was feeling. 

Oh well, Slipstream thought angrily, sliding down onto her own aft. It could be worse. She could have been shot. 

Silence stretched out between them. In it, Slipstream could hear the faint pitter-patter of energon dripping off the edge of Elita's armour and onto the floor, and the huffs of irritation from her as she shifted around. 

"What are you doing?" Slipstream called.

Elita didn't answer at first. "Seeing to my repairs."

Slipstream enhanced her vision, heightening the light sensitivity so she could see her enemy better. Elita was poking at her wound, trying to fit her clumsy Autobot fingers into the seam to get at the fuel line that had been ruptured. 

If Elita lost any more energon the slavers would be able to _sniff_ them out down here. 

She shuffled over on her knees, "Would you like a hand?" 

"Depends," Elita muttered. "Is it yours?"

"An ungrateful Autobot," Slipstream sighed, coming to kneel before her anyway. "Never met one of those before-"

"You needn't bother yourself," Elita muttered coldly. 

"No, but I'm not going to sit here and listen to you huff and gasp and whine for Primus-knows-how long we'll be stuck down here for." 

Elita's optics were narrow blue slits. Slipstream had suffered far grumpier warriors than her though, and ignored her. Boldly, she took Elita's wrist and moved it aside, sitting back on her heels to make herself comfortable before slipping her narrow claws into the shoulder seam and finding the fuel line without bother. 

Elita was stiff and suspicious under her hands, watching her every move carefully. Slipstream worked as though her attention didn't bother her anymore than the sticky energon getting under her claws. 

"Why are you doing this?" Elita broke the silence, her voice warm and low, and dangerously close to Slipstream's audials 

Slipstream subtly shuffled to the left, grateful for the low light of the bunker disguising the warm flush that came over her cheeks. "I told you why, to shut you up." 

"You're armed." Eilta pointed out. "I'm injured. There are easier ways to deal with me. More 'Decepticon' ways." 

Slipstream ignored that lovely little stereotype. "Your friends wouldn't be very happy with me if they found you down here with me deactivated." 

"What makes you think Autobots will be coming to rescue us?" Elita questioned, voice still soft - too soft to be using on a Con. "It could be your friends." 

Slipstream stopped herself from saying 'what friends'. Instead she struggled. "It's not the Decepticon way. Fall behind, and be left behind. No one is coming for me." 

She expected Elita to begin one of those very Autobot-sounding spiels about how callous and barbaric that was. She didn't. She sat and watched Slipstream work quietly, and didn't even flinch when Slipstream sealed and disconnected the fuel line, even though it meant Elita's entire left arm would be useless until a medic saw to her, putting her at an even greater disadvantage in the dangerous situation they had found themselves in. 

"There," Slipstream finished, removing her claws and sitting back. "You'll live to fight another battle, 'commander'." 

Elita glanced at her useless arm, giving nothing away. She nodded once, in thanks. 

Wary of how close to camaraderie this was getting, Slipstream shuffled back over to her side of the bunker. They listened to the faint sounds of the searching slavers above. 

Slipstream kept her optics on the trap door above them, knowing whoever came through it first, slaver or Autobot, they would be no friend of hers. 

* * *

  
On the other side of the bunker, Slipstream was silent. 

For a seeker renowned for having a _mouth_ , the fact both surprised Elita, and disappointed her. If anything would have kept her mind of the uncomfortable numbness of her left arm it would have been an irritating Con that just didn't know how to shut up. 

She had teased Optimus countless times in the past for letting himself become distracted by this exact sort of Decepticon manipulation and ending up regretting it -most commonly courtesy of Starscream, who was clever enough to talk himself out of anything, a was perhaps a bit of a chink in the Prime's otherwise impenetrable armour. 

Maybe she had judged Optimus too harshly all these years. If it was a Decepticon tactic to lull hapless Autobot into a false sense of security, she wasn't entirely immune to it either. 

From what she could tell Slipstream hadn't actively sabotaged her with her temporary fix. She had performed the exact procedure she herself had been trying to fumble through, even thought such unhindered access to her enemy's frame would have allowed her to wreak all manner of havoc. 

All she would have needed to do was yank on that fuel line and Elita would have bled out in matter of seconds, her war career ended in a bunker under an illegal trade market, by a Decepticon she never should have let so close. 

She had plenty suspicions, and a thousand more questions, about what this Decepticon's motivations could possibly be. What had brought her to the outer reaches? Why she was alone, and so far from anyone she could call an alley? 

Elita settled on a much less personal line of questioning first, seeing as they had time. 

"Who are those mechs?" 

Slipstream's head lifted, her almond shaped optics widening a fraction. "...Slavers." She said after a pause. 

When no further answer was forth coming, Elita reasoned she was going to have to carry this conversation herself. "Why do they want to kill you?" 

The was a shifting of armour. A shrug. "They might not," she sounded amused. "They care more about credits than they do revenge. They're not proud, not like you Autobots." 

Elita ignored that jab, leaning in, concerned. "They're trying to _enslave_ you?" 

"They want me to compensate their losses. If I don't have to funds to do so, I imagine they'll find a creative way for me to pay them back," Slipstream's optics flicked up and focused on Elita. "A pity you were dragged into this, but then, maybe you Autobots will finally learn to stop sticking your olfactories into things that don't concern you." 

Elita glared. "Slavery does concern us. It's one for the injustices we fight against." 

Slipstream scoffed in disbelief. Elita felt her temper rise. 

"So how did you wrong these slavers? Steal their cargo from them?"

"They certainly seem to think so," Slipstream didn't seem bothered by her harsh judgmental tone, morally bankrupt as she appeared to be. "But that would imply they'd owned their cargo in the first place, wouldn't it." 

Elita was about to argue that Slipstream sounded no better than the slavers themselves, when she paused, taking those words in. "What did you do with them? The people?" She asked quietly.

When Slipstream avoided her gaze, Elita arrived at her own conclusion. 

"You freed them, didn't you?"

Slipstream didn't answer. Elita decided she didn't need to, and felt a wave of guilt filled her at having so misjudged her. 

She knew that many Decepticon had started with noble intentions, fighting for the rights and freedoms of themselves and others. She was also all too aware than many of them had lost their way, become corrupted by a cause they believed in so fiercely that they hadn't even noticed how poisoned they had become by it. It was rot seeping down from the very top, fed by greed and power and revenge and _hate_. 

"You could have left me in the market." 

Slipstream snorted, "And been shot a second later after you'd died, yeah-"

"You can fly," Elita interrupted firmly. "When they were busy shooting at me, you could have flown away, left this planet, been halfway to the next system by now."

Slipstream was a silent pair of glaring optics. 

"...I thought Decepticons who fell behind were left behind?" Elita pressed with a hint of amusement, rather enjoying the irritated twitch growing in Slipstream's left optic. 

"You're not a Decepticon," she growled. 

"No, I'm worse. I'm an Autobot," Elita let herself smirk openly now, feeling rather smug at having uncovered this unexpectedly noble side to Slipstream. A seeker with a soft spark. What a tale to tell this would be. 

Armour shifted and clunked, and Slipstream's shadow rose and spread out on the other side of the bunker. Almost twice her size, Elita wasn't in the least intimidated. She sat back and watched the Decepticon stomp over to stand front of her. Wings fanned on her back to make herself big and menacing. Elita's smirk widened. 

"I pitied you," Slipstream glared, an energon stained claw extended towards her. "What sort of warrior doesn't know when to _duck_ a blaster bolt?" 

Elita was about to respond, when she caught a glimpse of pink around the collar of Slipstream's throat. She pointed with her good hand. "You're injured." 

Slipstream blinked, lifting her hands to her neck in surprise. Then Elita remembered, the sword she had held to her throat. She must have nicked Slipstream when she had been shot. She held out her arm, concerned. "Here, let me see-" 

Slipstream stepped back, glaring, "Not on your life-"

"It could be serious-"

"I would be dead by now if it was." 

" _Slipstream_ ," Elita said her full designation reproachfully, and even to her audials it sounded scandalously overfamiliar of her to reprimand a Decepticon as though she were one of her own soldiers. 

She held the seeker's gaze though, unashamed, and could have sworn she saw a flush of colour fill the seeker's face. 

"You proved yourself trustworthy," she gestured to her own arm. "Allow me to return the favour."

"It doesn't need seeing to." 

"For my peace of mind," Elita insisted. "I gave you that wound." 

"The _sword_ gave me the wound. An Autobot as slow as you couldn't hope to strike me." 

Elita arched her brow. 

With a juvenile huff, Slipstream stamped her foot and conceded to dropping heavily to her knees in front of Elita. "Don't fragging mess with me-"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Elita muttered, focusing instead on the cut. She tipped Slipstream's head back, ignoring the angry mutter the action provoked. It was a minor cut, and the energon that had spilled from it had already congealed and sealed the wound temporarily. Still, she would need to be careful. 

"You're lucky," she whispered. 

She thought she felt Slipstream shiver under her hand. "Seekers always are," she said, in a clear attempt to cover it up. 

The bunker wasn't cold, quite the opposite in fact. The humidity of the unground space made the bunker feel clammy and claustrophobic, and with Slipstream so close to her again, that feeling was heightened. 

There was a pleasantly light breeze coming from Slipstream's air vents though, as they wafted across the side of Elita's helm. Her vents were coming a little fast. 

Elita lifted her gaze from the wound to study Slipstream. 

Vosian good looks graced every seeker, but Slipstream's features seemed more refined, sharper than most. It gave her the appearance of maturity, and intimidation. The razor sharp curl of her dark lips alone was enough to destroy the self confidence of any mecha with barely a glance. She was lean and tall, perfectly balanced and aerodynamic. Her hips were narrow and her armour exaggerated the width of her shoulders, turning her chassis into a near perfect V shape. 

Elita's spark thumped in it's chamber when those visual observations decoded themselves in her processor; Slipstream was _pretty_. A dangerous sort of pretty. The most exciting sort of pretty. Pretty in a way that was designed to intimidate and scare away. 

As someone who had gone to great lengths to cultivate that sort of image herself, Elita found it unbearably attractive. 

Something in her expression must have betrayed her thoughts, because when she lifted her gaze from Slipstream's dark lips and met her optics, they were wide and stunned. Elita realised with a sharp spike of feeling that she was still touching Slipstream's narrow chin, her finger tips lingering against facial derma that felt warm and flushed. 

She let her hand drift away cautiously, unable to break optical contact. 

"Why pink?" Slipstream asked out of the blue. 

Elita didn't dare look away from her glowing optics. The red she had always associated with hate, with an enemy, now seemed warm and lustful. Something warm and heavy settled low in her tanks. 

"To intimidate my enemies," she answered honestly, her now trademark colour having been picked by her much less subtle younger self. 

Slipstream's knees walked her a little closer. Elita unfolded her thigh and shifted it aside. Slipstream scooted into the space provided. Her thighs, resting besides Elita's, seemed slender and long. 

"You don't intimidate me," Slipstream challenged, lips parting, chin lifting. The narrow cut on her neck glinted. 

"Don't I?" 

Slipstream reached for her, the sharp tips of her claws dragging lightly down Elita's chest plate. The sensation sent a shiver up her spine. 

"I like it," there was no mistaking the purr in the seeker's voice now. Her optics were hooded and dark. "It was a royal colour in Vos." 

Her hand had reached Elita's shoulder. It rested there, massaging the pauldron in little circles. Elita lifted her working arm and set her hand on Slipstream's hip. "What did it represent?" 

Slipstream brought her other hand to Elita's shoulder, and soon she was stroking the back of her neck, rising onto her knees to swung them over Elita's thighs, straddling her. Elita's fingers flexed against Slipstream's hip. 

Slipstream leaned in close before answering, letting her dark, devious mouth brush Elita's audial before she spoke, "Power." 

Elita's optics fluttered at the warm feeling that passed through her. Slipstream curled closer to her, looping her arms around her neck, their chest plates flushed together. She forced her optics to refocus just as Slipstream leant in, and then they were kissing. 

Higher thought no longer existed within Elita's processor. Her hand found Slipstream's wing and began to explore territory she had never had the opportunity to before. They were sensitive and active, trying to flick out of her hands when her touch overstimulated them, Slipstream twitching in her lap and gasping into her mouth. She wished her other arm was still functional, so she could touch each wing and shower them in the attention they deserved. Slipstream was pulling on one of the antennas on the side of her helm, rough with her lust, needy and squirming. 

Elita ran her fingers repeatedly over the hinges of her wings, enjoying the soft sounds they prompted from Slipstream, growing louder with very pass until Slipstream wretched her mouth away with a curse, her claws biting into the armour at the back of Elita's helm. The pinch of pain mingled with her arousal and urged her on. She held Slipstream tight against her frame and kissed her fiercely, no longer just light shifting kisses but something deeper and messier. 

If Slipstream was taken aback she gave no indication of it, giving as good as she got, turning their kiss into a competition that Elita had no intention of letting her win. 

They parted with panting breaths, Slipstream rubbing her pointed little nose against Elita's, optics narrow but mischievous. "You're a bad Autobot," she teased huskily, sounding like something out of a cheap porn flick. 

"You're a worse Con," Elita laughed breathlessly. Slipstream's smirk lost some of it's edge, her optics softening with a clear affection. "Sleeping with the enemy." 

"I'll have you know that there are no Decepticon rules against fragging Autobots," she announced deviously. "As a matter of fact, it's widely encouraged."

Elita wouldn't have been able to stop her grin had she tried. "Why doesn't that surprise me?" 

Slipstream let her hands drag down Elita's chest plate smoothly, her destination obvious. "Are you going to ruin your flawless reputation on your own, or am I going to have to do it for you?" 

Elita laughed, but it transmuted into a sigh when Slipstream cupped her codpiece, fingers rubbing over the seams to encourage it open. Warmth pooled between her hips. "I think my reputation can stand up to a little unproven Decepticon gossip."

"Unproven?" Slipstream gave her a look, rising onto her knees again to show Elita how her panel had snapped back. Elita could see the flushed folds of her valve, already filling with energon. 

"You're hardly a -a trustworthy source," Elita sighed halfway through, giving into Slipstream's touch and letting her codpiece open. Slipstream didn't wait for her spike to emerge on it's own terms, her hands diving in to stroke and tease. 

Elita lifted the fingers of her working hand and reached for Slipstream's valve. The seeker was already damp, but a few experimental touches had her soaking in no time, Elita's fingers sliding through silky mesh and Slipstream rolling into her touches. Her hand fell still on Elita's spike in her distraction. 

Elita leaned up and kissed her parted lips, watching Slipstream's optics flutter in delight. Slipstream leant forwards and let her head knock Elita's, shuffling forward to line herself up. Elita placed a hand on her hip to guide, and let her sink down at her own pace, rocking her valve against her spike, letting the tip roll through the folds before finally dropping onto it.

The first inch sank in and Slipstream paused, her face dark with a flush. Elita stroked her hip, her thighs twitching at the luxurious clench and drag of Slipstream's internals. 

She adjusted, and continued, and soon Slipstream was seated snugly in Elita's lap, attitude and front gone as she whined softly and rocked her hips. Elita let her tuck her head against her neck and began to shift her hips up to meet with Slipstream's lazy little twitches, the mesh walls of Slipstream's valve clenching and releasing in a heavenly rhythm. 

Slipstream began to grind herself onto her spike, no longer capable of much beyond clinging to her and panting desperately. She began to lift herself, hands planted on Elita's shoulders, and overloaded with a sharp cry, her helm flying back, optics clenched shut, mouth wide open. 

Elita held her hip and began to chase her own overload, bucking her hips up into the frantic flutter of Slipstream's overloading valve. She found it quickly, and pressed Slipstream down and urged her hips up to overload deep into the shaking seeker, watching wings flick in time with every euphoric pulse of her spike. 

They sat together, entangled and overheated, breathing in unison with one another in the silence. Slipstream dropped her head to Elita's shoulder again, nuzzling closer like she wanted to hide against her. 

Elita sttoked her back, amused at how low her proud wings had fallen. "Did that really just happen?" She asked lightly, not regretful, but ...amazed? Her thoughts clouded with a haze of otherworldliness. 

She remembered the noise Slipstream had made when she'd overloaded. 

Yes, definitely amazed. 

"Yes," Slipstream muttered against her armour. "Do we have to talk about it." 

"No," Elita smirked, tightening her arm around Slipstream. "We can cuddle instead." 

Slipstream emitted a noise of unabridged disgust, lifting her head from her shoulder. She looked rather cranky for someone who should have been basking in postcoital bliss. "You Autobots-!"

"I can hardly make you," Elita reminded her, gesturing to her one working arm. "Your side of the bunker is yours to retreat to." 

Slipstream looked away. After a moment, she settled down against her again, shifting to make herself comfortable across her pink Autobot pillow. Elita refrained from saying anything. 

"You're more comfortable than the floor," Slipstream explained before she could compose any smug comments anyway. 

"Glad I'm of some use," Elita muttered, but it wasn't as sarcastic as she would have liked.

* * *

  
They must have dozed off at some point, because when Elita next blinked it was to the sound of blaster fire and shouting above. Slipstream jolted awake across her chest, and was up and across the bunker in an instant, staring up at the trap door like she expected a hoard of assailants to barrel through it at any second. 

Feeling a chill in the seeker's absence, Elita braced a hand against the wall and pushed herself to stand, dizzy and worn down from fuel loss. 

"Autobots," Slipstream murmured, her optics alight and keen. "Lucky you, your sisters have come to the rescue." 

Elita's relief at her imminent recovery was undercut with apprehension. Once the slavers were taken care off, her Autobots would take Slipstream into custody. She was a Decepticon, regardless of what good deeds had landed her in this situation. And she would remain one. 

Unless she renounced that path. 

"You should come with us," Elita found herself saying. 

Slipstream stared at her. "...What?!"

"Come with me. Come with us," she implored, stretching out a hand for her to take. "I would vouch for you." 

"I'm a Con," Slipstream snapped. 

"You wouldn't be the first defector-"

"Who says I want to defect?!" Slipstream glared resentfully. 

"You're not like them," Elita began, speaking to her gently, despite the insistence she wanted to put into her words. "Slipstream, you have to have realised that you're on the wrong side of this war. You're a _good person_ -"

"Thank you for the gleaming moral assessment," Slipstream bowed mockingly in gratitude. "But just because I dragged your aft out of trouble and we screwed around last night, doesn't mean I want to join your little Autobot club." 

Elita struggled to hide her disappointment, "If you're worried you won't be accepted-"

"Do I _look_ like someone who gives a frag about what anyone else thinks of me?" Slipstream's optics were burning coals of red now. "I know you think seekers will change their allegiances as often as they do their colours, but I _know_ where I belong. And it's not with _Autobots_." 

She sneered the word, perhaps trying to hurt Elita. 

She wouldn't rise to it. Instead she nodded, as acceptingly she could. "I understand." 

"So what now?" Slipstream swallowed. "Are you going to try and delay me until your friends can get down here and arrest me? Let them throw me in some asteroid prison in another backend of the galaxy?" 

"No," Elita took a step back from the ladder. "I'm injured. What can I do to stop you?" 

Slipstream studied her, optics narrow and suspicious. "...You're not going to win this war with that wishy-washy attitude. What does that tell your enemies? That if they cozy up to you, you'll let them go?" 

"It tells them that Elita One has a soft spot after all," Elita admitted, sighing as she took another step back, giving Slipstream more than enough room to ignite her thrusters and shoot up the ladder, to her escape.

Slipstream did, and blue light filled the darkened bunker. She hovered just an inch above the ground, making no move to fly off just yet. The sounds of fighting outside had died down. So she didn't have long. 

"A soft spot for what?" She sounded nervously curious. "Seekers? You wouldn't be the first Autobot." 

Elita shook her head, "For you." 

Slipstream hesitated, then shook her head, "You can't charm me over to your side." 

"I can try." 

Slipstream met her gaze evenly, and for just a brief moment, all the animosity and distrust faded away. "...I'll see you around, 'Lita." 

Elita's spark _thunked_ at the soft sound of that completely inappropriate nickname. "Soon, I hope." 

Slipstream rolled her optics and leapt up to the top rung of the ladder. She shoved the trap door open and natural light flooded the underground bunker. Elita shielded her optics, and by the time she had uncovered them, Slipstream was gone, nothing but a trail of dissipating smoke in her wake.

"Commander!" A voice was calling. Chromia. "Commander, are you down there?!" 

Elita gripped the lowest rung of the ladder and began to climb, bracing herself for the carnage that lay above.


End file.
